My Hair Story at the moment
Posted 05-26-2011 at 05:43 AM by topsyturvy86
As I’m getting myself mentally prepared for going natural, I’m going through a host of emotions. I read an article a few days ago that had a statement which was incredibly true … “For a black woman, no hair choice is easy”.
It made me think about how unfair I perceive the situation to be. Staying relaxed is not an option because it’s fragile and my hair grows back natural so I have to keep up the crack. The silk feel only lasts for two weeks and then I have the rest of the time to count down the weeks until my last relaxer. Going natural has its own challenges from the outside world and most importantly even from other black people that look down on natural hair. Natural hair looks unnatural even to black people and is not seen as beautiful. In some circumstances it could even be seen as offensive. Weaves and wigs are not sustainable in the long run and can never look as real as long beautiful flowing straight or straight-ish hair.
I’m 8 months into my natural journey and it has been quite challenging. I wore my hair straight for the past 7 months and wore clip-in extensions to make it look nice. I washed and straightened weekly which had a bigger effect on my relaxed hair than it did on my natural hair. This strengthened my decision to go natural as it is healthier and stronger. The clip-in’s broke the ends of the back of my relaxed hair but gave me the most natural extensions. Even hair dressers didn’t know I had extensions as my front hair was quite long so blended in very nicely. It took me about half an hour however to get my hair done in the morning and I had to wash my extensions once in the week, usually a Wednesday, and once on the weekend. After a couple of months as you can imagine, it began to take its toll on me. I was becoming a slave to my hair and not doing my front hair any justice having to use a hot comb everyday. I work in a corporate environment so just letting it go in its state of two textures or something was not an option.
At the beginning of this month I invested in the lace. The first time it was applied I wasn’t a fan and it took a while for the lace to settle. It looked nice but itched as I hadn’t worn any form of proper extensions in over 3 years. I took it off two weeks later to wash my hair and let it breathe. Breakage on the hairline… oh my gosh!! Anyway … I went to a black hair shop the weekend I took it off to see if I could purchase a half wig/instant weave and couldn’t find one I wanted. I wanted one that could be parted on the side as I always wear my hair with a side parting. Perhaps I was looking for too much but I didn’t find even a normal half wig that looked real in comparison to my lace at home so I decided to go back home to my darling lace. I bought some adhesive tape and remover so I can attempt to get it done at home and save some money.
I attempted my application on Sunday night and made a muck of it. Nightmare!! I got it to a decent state on one side and used bobby pins behind. At lunchtime, I dashed out of the office to my hair dresser about half an hour away to get it re-applied. She did it and I came back in the nick of time before people realized I had been gone too long.
That incidence made me realized how much of a slave I still am to my hair. I feel like the lace is the least of all evils right now. I have a TWA and not bold enough to let go now so that’s not an option. Also I haven’t had natural hair for as long as I can remember so I don’t know what my hair is going to be like or what it likes/doesn’t like or what it reacts to …
I said a prayer in the toilet at the office this morning out of mild frustration asking God WHY! Why can’t my lace just look extremely real like Tyra/Beyonce’s? In my head I felt like nothing fake can ever be like the real thing. Fake gold no matter how much it’s shined or whatever, can never be like real gold. And then I’m like but why then … why can’t my natural hair be beautiful... it’s just not beautiful! And in my head I thought … to whom? To who is it not beautiful. And then I’m like never mind.
I don’t know yet how I’m going to go about wearing my natural or live with my natural but I guess I’ll cross that bridge when I get there. Until then, I guess I just have to continue making difficult choices. When I get to the point to make the most difficult, I’ll hopefully be mentally prepared enough to love and feel secure in what I see in the mirror regardless of what anyone else tells me.
It made me think about how unfair I perceive the situation to be. Staying relaxed is not an option because it’s fragile and my hair grows back natural so I have to keep up the crack. The silk feel only lasts for two weeks and then I have the rest of the time to count down the weeks until my last relaxer. Going natural has its own challenges from the outside world and most importantly even from other black people that look down on natural hair. Natural hair looks unnatural even to black people and is not seen as beautiful. In some circumstances it could even be seen as offensive. Weaves and wigs are not sustainable in the long run and can never look as real as long beautiful flowing straight or straight-ish hair.
I’m 8 months into my natural journey and it has been quite challenging. I wore my hair straight for the past 7 months and wore clip-in extensions to make it look nice. I washed and straightened weekly which had a bigger effect on my relaxed hair than it did on my natural hair. This strengthened my decision to go natural as it is healthier and stronger. The clip-in’s broke the ends of the back of my relaxed hair but gave me the most natural extensions. Even hair dressers didn’t know I had extensions as my front hair was quite long so blended in very nicely. It took me about half an hour however to get my hair done in the morning and I had to wash my extensions once in the week, usually a Wednesday, and once on the weekend. After a couple of months as you can imagine, it began to take its toll on me. I was becoming a slave to my hair and not doing my front hair any justice having to use a hot comb everyday. I work in a corporate environment so just letting it go in its state of two textures or something was not an option.
At the beginning of this month I invested in the lace. The first time it was applied I wasn’t a fan and it took a while for the lace to settle. It looked nice but itched as I hadn’t worn any form of proper extensions in over 3 years. I took it off two weeks later to wash my hair and let it breathe. Breakage on the hairline… oh my gosh!! Anyway … I went to a black hair shop the weekend I took it off to see if I could purchase a half wig/instant weave and couldn’t find one I wanted. I wanted one that could be parted on the side as I always wear my hair with a side parting. Perhaps I was looking for too much but I didn’t find even a normal half wig that looked real in comparison to my lace at home so I decided to go back home to my darling lace. I bought some adhesive tape and remover so I can attempt to get it done at home and save some money.
I attempted my application on Sunday night and made a muck of it. Nightmare!! I got it to a decent state on one side and used bobby pins behind. At lunchtime, I dashed out of the office to my hair dresser about half an hour away to get it re-applied. She did it and I came back in the nick of time before people realized I had been gone too long.
That incidence made me realized how much of a slave I still am to my hair. I feel like the lace is the least of all evils right now. I have a TWA and not bold enough to let go now so that’s not an option. Also I haven’t had natural hair for as long as I can remember so I don’t know what my hair is going to be like or what it likes/doesn’t like or what it reacts to …
I said a prayer in the toilet at the office this morning out of mild frustration asking God WHY! Why can’t my lace just look extremely real like Tyra/Beyonce’s? In my head I felt like nothing fake can ever be like the real thing. Fake gold no matter how much it’s shined or whatever, can never be like real gold. And then I’m like but why then … why can’t my natural hair be beautiful... it’s just not beautiful! And in my head I thought … to whom? To who is it not beautiful. And then I’m like never mind.
I don’t know yet how I’m going to go about wearing my natural or live with my natural but I guess I’ll cross that bridge when I get there. Until then, I guess I just have to continue making difficult choices. When I get to the point to make the most difficult, I’ll hopefully be mentally prepared enough to love and feel secure in what I see in the mirror regardless of what anyone else tells me.
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Comments
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I've been where you are. I just wanted to say that so that you'll know you're not alone. I still pray about my hair to this day. I know you'll make the best decision for yourself over time. In the meantime make sure you feel the best about yourself everyday. You deserve to feel beautiful every day!Posted 05-26-2011 at 09:09 AM by lana 
